Buyer beware: There are shades of 'greenness' - International Herald Tribune

Buyer beware: There are shades of 'greenness' - International Herald Tribune: "Buyer beware: There are shades of 'greenness'
By James Kanter

DAVOS, Switzerland: It was a sales pitch like so many others these days: Volkswagen, the German automaker, was using environmental imagery to advertise the latest version of its sporty Golf to British buyers, placing the car in a brightly lit meadow next to a deer.

But instead of green, the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority saw red, ordering that the advertisement should not appear again in its current form. Volkswagen had made a 'claim that could mislead,' the authority, which is an independent body set up by the advertising industry, ruled in December.

Readers of newspapers and magazines, the ruling continued, might think 'the car had low emissions when compared to all cars,' but 'it did not.'

Environmentalists have long complained that companies cloak themselves in a positive public image — a practice sometimes referred to as 'greenwashing' — to conceal practices that fall short of praiseworthy."